Charoen Breaks Into Business
With an Offer of Marriage

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi began doing business when most of his contemporaries were doing homework.

One of 11 children of an immigrant Chinese hawker who sold fried mussels on the streets of Bangkok's Chinatown, Mr. Charoen began his career peddling inexpensive toys to his primary-school classmates, according to family lore. Ready for bigger things, he left school at age 11 to work in a sundry shop.